


drop me a line

by ictus



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Exhibitionism, F/F, Femslash February 2018, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 19:37:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13724577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ictus/pseuds/ictus
Summary: Oracle has an offer for Batwoman. She propositions her, in her way.





	drop me a line

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place more or less outside of canon so byo context. I had pre-Flashpoint Barbara and Rebirth Kate in mind when writing this.

The manila envelope lies innocently on Kate’s kitchen table, taunting her. Unaddressed and nondescript, it bears no trace of radiation or chemical hazards, and when she scans it with her hand-held X-ray, the readings suggest nothing but paper.

Thinking that there’s nothing else for it, Kate gently pries open the envelope’s seal, finding documents and a stack of photographs. The glossy, hi-res shots are digitally enhanced, and she recognises the men in the photos as members of the East-Sider Gang. There’s been an increase in arms trafficking through Gotham, and after a painstaking month-long investigation, she’s finally traced it back to them; all she needs is suitable evidence to have them acquitted.

Such evidence, it seems, has fallen right into her lap. She rifles through the dossier and finds a manifesto detailing the import schedule of the textile company which the East-Siders are using as a front for their weapons trade. There’s a single entry highlighted—next Thursday, 23:00 hours—and Kate realises that her opportunity to catch these thugs in the act has been all but handed to her on a silver platter.

Tucked behind the documents is a small, typed note:

_Thought you could do with a hand._

Not for the first time, Kate has the eerie sensation that she’s being watched.

 

: : :

 

The evidence comes back clean, of course.

Kate finds herself considering how different things would be if she had accepted Bruce’s offer. She could be conducting her own forensics in his state-of-the-art lab, no need to call in any favours from anyone. But Kate’s made more difficult decisions than this in the past—has had to shoulder the heavy burden of their consequences too—and she refuses to let this be added deadweight, dragging her down. Kate has always acted with conviction, has always trusted her gut; in this instance, her instincts told her that running with the Bats wasn’t the right choice, and now it’s up to her to live with that.

As it stands, Kate has to outsource this particular job, and she’s lucky to have such good connections within the Criminal Investigations Department from her army days. She receives the lab results within days and it’s just as she expected: no prints, no DNA, and nothing traceable to go off. The envelope had been sealed with a glycerine-based adhesive rather than saliva, and liquid chromatography indicates that the note had been written with an Olivetti Lettera typewriter—a model so ubiquitous and widely-circulated it would be impossible to trace.

The only unique feature is a small stamp printed at the bottom of the note, like a signature. It consists of a perfect circle encased in the letter ‘O’ surrounded by a fusiform oval. The overall effect reminds Kate of ripples on the surface of a pond, or the modified targets she used to use for shooting practice, or even—Kate realises belatedly—a watchful, unblinking eye. 

 

: : :

 

The intel checks out. The East-Siders arrive at the docks shortly before 23:00, and Kate waits until they’re unloading their cargo before intervening and apprehending them.

Kate is more careful than ever, keeping an eye on the rooftops for any caped figures, her ears straining to catch the click of a grapple line being deployed, searching for any hint that she’s being watched. But it seems that she truly is alone—at least physically. This isn’t Bruce’s M.O., anyway.

She calls it in and lingers on the scene until she hears sirens sounding in the distance. As she’s leaving, she spots a CCTV camera overhead. She pauses, raising her face to look squarely into the lens, and gives it a small salute.

 

: : :

 

The following morning Kate wakes to the sound of a knock on her door, and when she opens it there’s a courier waiting with a small package in his hand.

“Ms. Kane?” he asks. The corners of his mouth are barely holding back a smirk, as if he were telling a private joke at Kate’s expense. Kate narrows her eyes in an attempt to look intimidating but the boy’s smirk stays firmly in place, as if he were immune to such looks.

“How did you know where to deliver this when there’s no address?” she asks, barely keeping the irritation out of her voice. It’s far too early to be playing games.

The boy seems unaffected by her scrutiny, his bright blue eyes never once leaving her face. He hands off the package and turns to leave without further comment. Kate had expected that, but it doesn’t matter; she has her own suspects at this point.

She opens the package the moment the door is closed, not bothering with security checks this time. The parcel is heavier than last time, and when she opens it she finds a small velvet box, not unlike those used for engagement rings. She lifts the lid to find a tiny earpiece nestled within the plush lining of the box.

The accompanying note is once again stamped with the symbol of the eye:

_Just in case you feel you could use further assistance._

 

: : : 

 

Kate leaves the earpiece in its box on her dresser for a week, occasionally taking it out to run her fingers around its edges. It’s a tiny thing, having the dual purpose of transmitting and receiving audio, as well as acting as a GPS tracker. It’s been a long time since she was on anyone’s grid, although she’s not foolish: she knows there’s little that goes on in Gotham that Bruce is unaware of.

One night before leaving for patrol, she decides to finally use it. She tells herself it’s just a professional courtesy at this point, but she has to admit she’s more than a little curious about the person who sent it to her. The earpiece is already tuned into the correct frequency, and she slips the device into her ear before fitting her wig and her mask.  

She begins her usual route, soaring above rooftops and ducking through alleys. She’s just rounding the edge of Newtown Port when the comm crackles to life in her ear.

“Batwoman. Welcome aboard.” The voice is modulated, yet undeniably female under the distortion. It’s all the confirmation Kate needs.

“Oracle. Glad to see your tech is actually functional. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

There’s a pause, and for several moments the only sounds in Kate’s ear are the soft tapping of a keyboard. Kate pictures Oracle sitting in front of a wall of monitors, fingers darting easily over the keys, brow furrowed in concentration.

“I understand you’ve spoken to Batman?” comes the eventual reply.

Kate lets out a huff into the cold Gotham air, knowing the microphone is sophisticated enough to catch it. “Affirmative. I assume he relayed my response.”

“He did,” comes the slow reply, accompanied by more typing.

“So you’ll understand why I was taken aback by your gift.”

“Oh, that was nothing. Strictly business,” she replies, light and teasing; Kate’s able to mentally compensate for the distortion of the voice modulator and Oracle’s tone is coming through more clearly now. “Batman just wants to ensure everyone’s on the same page.”

“On the same page?” Kate replies dubiously. She’s resumed her route northbound and rather than keep to the shadows, she finds herself trying to stay within range of the CCTV cameras, imagining how she must look on Oracle’s screens.

“Yes. Batman has decreed that all caped vigilantes operating within Gotham’s city limits must be contactable at all times.” The modulator does little to hide the note of distaste underlying her words, and Kate likes to imagine they’re accompanied by an eye-roll. Regardless of whether or not Oracle agrees with Batman’s principles, it’s clear that she at least has some gripes with his methods.

“Well you can tell Batman that I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have no intention of being one,” comes the dry response; the ‘and tell him yourself’ remains unsaid. Kate’s willing to bet she’s been caught in the crossfire of more than a few arguments during her time as Oracle and makes a note to keep her out of any future disagreements.

Kate finally comes to rest, landing on the top of the courthouse and surveying the ground below. “As lovely as it is to have you whispering in my ear—” Oracle makes a derisive noise “—I think I’ve proven my competency many times over. I’m a lone soldier. I work alone.”

There’s silence once more, save for the sound of Oracle’s typing. Kate considers how many birds and bats she’s got in her sights tonight, wonders how she can possibly divide her attention between all of them at once.

“How’s your knee, Batwoman?”

Kate’s brow furrows behind the mask, caught off-guard by the non-sequitur. Her mind drifts back to when she had injured her knee several months ago. 

It was supposed to be a routine drug-bust: half a dozen hired guns, tops. But her intel had been bad and the scheduled drug deal had been brought forward, meaning double the perps and double the guns. Kate had been caught by surprise and was vastly out-numbered. She had been lucky to escape with her life after a stray bullet had grazed her knee, mercifully missing the joint by mere inches. The injury had put her out for three weeks.

“I suppose you’ve been keeping tabs on me for a while now, you noticed that I’ve been favouring my left leg. It’s incredibly flattering to know that you’ve been paying such close attention to me, Oracle. I didn’t realise I was of such interest to you.”

“Actually I was there when it happened,” she says with a sharpness that cuts through Kate’s mocking tone. “Not in the field, obviously. But I had eyes on the drop site. If I’d have had a means of communicating with you, I could have warned you of the incoming gang. You could have pulled back and waited for reinforcements.”

Kate clenches her jaw, her mind scrambling for a retort.

“You don’t have to report to me,” Oracle continues unerringly, “but I need to be able to reach you in such situations. This is a private frequency so I will be the only one contacting you. I can keep the audio from my end muted so it’ll be as if I’m not even here. Sound reasonable?”

For the first time there’s silence on the other end, and Kate imagines Oracle’s paused with her fingers poised over the keyboard, anticipating Kate’s reply.

Kate takes a few moments to think of a logical counterargument and comes up empty. “It looks like I don’t have much of a choice,” she says dryly.

“Excellent, I see we’ve reached an accord,” she replies primly. “Oracle out.”

The commlink goes dead. Kate knows Oracle can still hear her, probably has a small handful of cameras trained on her from this vantage point. Kate lets out another huff before readying her grapple and leaping from the roof.

Oracle, true to her word, keeps herself muted for the rest of the night, and Kate doesn’t hear so much as a whisper from her.

She’d be lying if she said she weren’t disappointed.

 

: : :

 

The earpiece becomes a regular addition to her pre-patrol preparation.

For two weeks she hears neither hide nor hair from Oracle, although that’s to be expected; the streets have been quiet lately with nothing but petty crime to keep her busy.

Considering this, it comes as a surprise when she chances upon a group of False Facers meeting in an abandoned garage in Chinatown. She had been following her usual route when she had spotted two men who were clearly armed, and her gut had told her something was off. As she had tracked them towards their meeting point, they had donned their masks, and Kate’s suspicious had been confirmed.

Kate hangs back as they enter the building, then circles around the back to the alley that runs adjacent to the garage. Ducking into the shadows, she pulls out her goggles and adjusts their setting to infrared, quickly getting a read on seven heat signatures inside the building.

Challenging, but not impossible.

Kate is rapidly devising a plan involving a broken window and a few well-timed smoked pellets when a sound in her ear interrupts her train of thought.

“Batwoman. Three armed men approaching on your six. ETA 90 seconds. Do you copy?” Kate’s breath catches, suddenly grateful to have Oracle running surveillance. Armed or not, she’s confident she could have handled the perps without advance warning, but the element of surprise is the greatest weapon in her arsenal, and she prefers not to have it used against her.

But she’s not about to tell Oracle that. “And here I was thinking you’d forgotten all about me.”

“Shall I send backup or do you think you can handle it yourself?” she replies with the dry mockery Kate has come to associate with her.

“Watch and see for yourself.”

Kate retreats deeper into the alley, letting her cape fall around her, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The thugs arrive seconds later, and Kate lets her muscle memory take over. Her blows are as brutal as they are precise, all her movements efficient, economised. The men are out cold within seconds, and it’s not until she’s zip-tying the perps that Oracle finally speaks.

“Impressive.”

“You sound surprised,” she says, pleased she’s not even a little bit breathless. “It’s not like he’d let just anyone wear his symbol.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh that’s right, of course you’re not; you’ve been stalking me for months now,” she says with a wry smile.

Kate expects a rebuttal but all Oracle says is, “you should consider training with Batgirl sometime.”

Kate’s taken aback, but doesn’t let it come through in her voice. “I’m afraid I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting the new Batgirl.”

“I think you’d like her. You could learn a lot from each other.”

“Is that so?” Kate asks, recalibrating her goggles so she can double-check how many men are inside. “And when do I get to meet the famous Oracle?”

There’s silence for a long moment and all Kate can do is wait, holding her breath. Just when she’s convinced that Oracle’s disconnected, she finally replies. “Seven men, three armed. Two with handguns, one with a semi-automatic. Comm me if you need back-up. Oracle out.”

The line goes dead. It may not have been a yes, but it wasn’t a no. And Kate can work with that.

 

: : : 

 

In the weeks that follow, Oracle and Kate communicate more frequently. Kate begins to grow accustomed to Oracle’s presence, finds herself looking forward to tapping into Oracle’s frequency each night. Recently, Oracle’s reduced the level of her modulator and her voice is much more natural, more human. Neither of them comment on it, but Kate’s a detective, a curator of clues; she would never let something so significant pass by unnoticed.

Kate is surprised by how intimate it feels to have Oracle’s voice in her ear keeping her company on her patrols, how it comes through clearly as if Oracle were right next to her. Sometimes they talk shop, but mostly they keep the conversation light and centred around their lives outside of the caped community. Oracle is as tight-lipped about her identity as ever, always carefully measuring her responses to personal questions in a way that’s strikingly reminiscent of Bruce.

“It hardly seems fair, considering you know everything about me,” Kate tells her one night after another failed attempt of gleaning identifying information from her.

“Well, not  _everything_ ,” she replies. The unspoken ‘not yet’ is a tease and a promise all at once.

“Oh please, I don’t even know your name.”

“I’ve told you my name.”

“No, your  _real_  name.”

“Irrelevant. No civilian names over comms, remember?” Kate lets out an exasperated huff but knows better than to push. Stubbornness seems to be a prerequisite for their line of work.

Kate begins to notice that her increased contact with Oracle is impacting on her civilian life. She finds herself putting on lipstick to go to the grocery store, winking at the security cameras all the while. She regularly sweeps her apartment for bugs and comes up clean every time, but she’s sure Oracle has eyes on her apartment. So she starts leaving her drapes open, decides she can afford to indulge some of Oracle’s creepier tendencies.

One night, Kate turns in early after a particularly brutal patrol. She’s bruised and battered, practically dead on her feet after a too many late nights coupled with too little sleep. She sheds her uniform piece by piece on the way to the bathroom and steps into the shower, moaning as the hot water hits her aching muscles.

It’s not until she’s towelling off her hair that she realises she’s yet to remove her earpiece. She raises her hand to do so, pauses for a moment, then thinks better of it. Oracle had signed off when Kate had returned home, but it’s still early by vigilante standards, and Oracle usually works until dawn. There’s silence on the other end, but that doesn’t mean that Oracle isn’t present.

Smiling to herself, Kate finishes drying and returns to her bedroom. The room is dark, save from the light spilling in from the streetlamp outside her window. She flops down on her bed and stretches languidly, feeling the tension drain out from her shoulders.

It’s not like it’s the first time she’s done this. She and Oracle have been, well, _flirting_ —for lack of a better word—for the last few weeks, and it’s enough to send Kate’s imagination into overdrive. So far, she’s kept those fantasies private. But on the off-chance that she’s drastically misread the situation, she has all the plausible deniability to get away with what she’s about to do.

She still doesn’t know what Oracle looks like, but she’s constructed her own image: brunette, probably. Hazel—no, green—eyes, with the freckles over the bridge of her nose fanning out to her cheeks. Kate’s not sure why, but she’s almost certain that Oracle wears glasses. She thinks of Oracle’s hands, deft and clever, and imagines them gripping her hair, pushing her head down between her thighs.

Kate extends a hand between her own thighs, lightly teasing herself. She runs her other hand over her breasts and begins recall a recent fantasy: she’s on her knees under Oracle’s desk, bringing her off with her hands and mouth while Oracle struggles to maintain her composure. Oracle’s breaths are coming in desperate gasps and she stutters as she gives commands over the commlink, her fingers growing erratic over her keyboard.

Kate moans at the thought and wonders for a moment if the sound was loud enough for it to register on Oracle’s systems and compel her to tune into Kate’s frequency. With her drapes open as they are, Oracle should be able to see the shadowed outline of her body, and Kate knows she has all the requisite programmes to digitally enhance the feed. Kate lets out another bitten-off moan, caught up in the image of Oracle listening to her get off. Her pace quickens, unable to remember the last time she was so turned on by her own hand. Has Oracle muted all other feeds? Has she amplified Kate’s microphone to catch every last moan?

Kate’s breath is coming in short bursts now, her movements spurred on by the idea of how this could be affecting Oracle. She pushes two fingers inside herself and starts pumping them in and out, flushing deeply with the realisation that the microphone can probably detect those sounds too. She imagines Oracle, flushed and breathless at her desk, fighting the urge to touch herself, and the thought is enough to push her to climax, moaning loudly even as her body shudders with the aftershocks.

She lies there for several long moments as her breath returns to normal, the ringing in her ears gradually dissipating. It would look suspicious for her to remove the earpiece now, so she simply pulls up the covers and decides to deal with it in the morning.

 

: : :

 

Kate wakes early to the sound of a faint  _ping_. It takes her a moment to pinpoint the source as the device that she’s come to think of as her work phone, the one she’d taken at Bruce’s insistence, but never actually used. The message itself is encrypted—a nonsensical stream of letters and numbers—and it’s more than Kate’s willing to deal with before midday.

Still, it could be urgent. Realising that she’s fighting a losing battle with herself, she forces herself out of bed and pulls on a robe, then removes the earpiece and returns it to its spot on her dresser. She boots up her laptop and runs the decryption programme Bruce gave her. The phone itself is encrypted, some Wayne Tech creation that’s supposed to be impossible to hack, so Kate’s more than a little curious about who could be sending her top secret messages.

Kate drums her fingers impatiently while the programme runs. Finally, the progress bar ticks over to 100%, and a message appears on her screen.

_I have a proposition for you. Tonight, 18h – O._

Beneath the message is an address of a building in Old Gotham that Kate doesn’t recognise. Kate’s pulse quickens, thinking of last night. She turns towards her bedroom window where the drapes are still open and allows herself a small smile.

 

: : :

 

The address turns out to be the clocktower in the centre of the Old Gotham District. As Kate approaches the building, her phone pings again, although this time the message is blessedly unencrypted:

_Take the elevator on the left once you enter the lobby. 14 th floor._

Kate does as instructed, shooting a small smile in the direction of the elevator’s security camera as she ascends. The elevator opens to a corridor with a single door at the end. She pauses before it, unsure if she should knock, but it slides open before she can even raise her fist. Trust Oracle to have a remotely-operated front door.

Kate steps into the apartment and realises she’s actually in the clocktower itself, the setting sun streaming in through the 20-foot glass clock face that dominates the western wall. Kate is unsurprised to see that Oracle’s large work space is dominated by a wall of monitors and associated tech, just as Kate had imagined it.

The door slides silently shut behind her, catching her attention, and when she turns back she sees—

“Barbara Gordon,” she says. Kate would recognise her anywhere. As the daughter of Gotham’s police commissioner, her brutal assault at the hands of the Joker had sent shockwaves through the community. For weeks, coverage of her attack had dominated the news cycles, toted out time and time again as an example of why harsher penalties were necessary to keep Gotham’s criminals behind bars. Even though it’s been years since her attack, Kate is unlikely to forget her face anytime soon.

“Ms. Kane. I see you received my message.” Kate’s taken aback by the warm timbre of her voice, how much smoother it sounds in person.

“Please, call me Kate. Yes I did, Bruce’s software was able to decrypt it for me.”

“Well of course it was—who do you think wrote the programme?” The wry smile Kate has come to associate with Oracle is playing on Barbara’s lips in much the same way that she’d imagined it would. The glasses are also as she’d pictured them, her eyes too. Her hair, though—

“You look different from how I imagined,” she says, and immediately realises it was the wrong thing to say.

“Different how?” Barbara’s tone is carefully even, but Kate doesn’t miss the way her hands clench into fists in her lap.

“You’re a redhead,” she says hastily.

Barbara raises an eyebrow. “Funny, I’ve been told I sound like a blonde—whatever that means.”

“I was actually picturing a brunette.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“Not at all,” she says, and she means it. Kate turns and walks over to Barbara’s workstation, running her hand over the machinery—some of it familiar and some of it completely foreign. “So, Barbara Gordon is Oracle. I never would have imagined you were so close to Bruce.”

“We have a long history,” Barbara replies, cryptic as ever. Kate rolls her eyes even though Barbara can’t see her.

“And so now you run surveillance for him and his legion of teenaged sidekicks?” Kate says, turning back to face her.

“Not just them. Actually, that brings me to why I’ve asked you here.”

“Oh?” Kate asks. It’s immediately clear that she’s drastically misinterpreted the situation, but she schools her features into something neutral, refusing to let it show.

Barbara’s resultant smirk tells her she wasn’t entirely successful. “Yes, perhaps you’d like to take a seat?”

She gestures towards a small living space that runs adjacent to her work station. Kate hesitates for a moment, wondering if she should offer to wheel Barbara there, but she’s already in motion before Kate can open her mouth, so Kate follows her and takes a seat on one of the couches. There’s a manila envelope sitting on the coffee table, and Barbara pushes it towards her without preamble. Kate pries open the seal, remembering that this was how it all started, and pulls out a stack of documents.

She rifles through them briefly. They consist of half a dozen vigilante character profiles, some she recognises, some she doesn’t. She looks up at Barbara expectantly.

“The Birds of Prey is a new cooperative headed by myself and Black Canary. At present, we have five associates and are looking to expand. Central HQ is based here in Gotham, but we operate interstate.” Barbara’s eyes are sharp and calculating behind her glasses, carefully gauging Kate’s reaction.

“So this is a recruitment drive?”

Barbara purses her lips. “When I heard you’d turned down Bruce’s offer, I thought perhaps you objected not to working in a team, but to the team itself. Was I incorrect?”

Kate hesitates, not wanting to give Barbara the satisfaction of being able to read her so easily.

“It’s not a full-time job,” she continues. “You would be primarily liaising with myself and Huntress who also operates out of Gotham. Kate, you’re exactly the type of person we would hope to have on our team, and I wanted to give you the opportunity to expand your horizons, to take down large-scale operations instead of preoccupying yourself with petty crime here in Gotham.”

Kate looks down at the envelope in her hands, running her fingers along its edges. “I’d have to think about it,” she says finally.

“Of course,” Barbara says, adjusting her glasses. “We don’t require an immediate response.”

“Was there anything else you wanted to discuss with me,” Kate asks, surprised at how agitated it comes out.

Barbara sits back in her chair and crosses her arms, regarding Kate for a long moment. Kate holds her gaze, not without some difficulty. “No, that was all.”

“Excellent,” Kate says, rising to leave. She passes Barbara who reaches out and gently grabs her wrist, her warm fingers right over the thrum of her pulse. Kate’s breath hitches, turning back to face her. Maybe she hadn’t misjudged the situation after all.

“I can’t allow that to leave this room,” she says evenly. Kate’s thrown for a moment then realises she’s still clutching the dossier in her hand.

“Of course,” she says, smiling tightly.

“I can send encrypted copies of each character profile to your computer.”

“Sounds good,” Kate replies, tossing the envelope back onto the coffee table. “I can show myself out,” she says a little too hastily.

There’s a small smile playing on Barbara’s lips, and for a moment Kate’s not sure if she’s more irritated with her or herself.

“It was nice meeting you, Batwoman.” Barbara’s tone is suddenly business-like, and she extends a hand for Kate to shake.

“Likewise, Oracle,” Kate replies, taking her hand.

“I trust I’ll be hearing from you soon,” she says as she releases Kate’s hand.

“Oh I don’t doubt that,” Kate replies with a smile, turning to leave.

Kate spends the entire 14-floor descent cursing herself, studiously avoiding the elevator’s camera. Regardless of her own personal feelings towards Barbara, she needs to consider this offer objectively. Barbara had been right about her; her objection to working with the Bats had little to do with working as a cooperative. And recently, Kate _has_ been feeling that there are more than enough vigilantes to keep crime in Gotham under wraps. She’s heard of Huntress and Black Canary before, knows that these are people who have very similar approaches to crimefighting as her, and they would likely complement each other well.

She’s still in deep contemplation when she arrives on the ground floor and exits the building. It’s the _ping_ of her work phone that breaks her out of her reverie.

_If you were planning on asking me out, you should know that I prefer a direct approach – O._

Kate stops in her tracks so abruptly that someone behind her bumps into her, cursing. Paying them no mind, she rereads the short message several times in quick succession, letting the words sink in, a smile forming on her lips.

Finally, she looks up and spots a CCTV camera overhead. She looks squarely into the lens, raises two fingers to her temple, and gives it a small salute.


End file.
